March 2015 Book Reviews

This Month In Books: Diary Writing Makes A Comeback

Another February has come and gone. For a short month, it sure was cold and miserable. Of course, March will also most likely have its incredibly cold days, but by now the snow and frigid winds have become kind of par for the course. But if you still find yourself weeping openly after being hit by a particularly bone-chilling slice of negative windchill, there are certain comforts you can take. One of those comforts happens to be a good book.

Ongoingness by Sarah MangusoDiary writing isn’t quite what it used to be. Even one of the most prominent and respected writers of our time, Zadie Smith, has written a takedown of sorts on diary writing. In it, she says “when it comes to life writing, the real, honest, diaristic, warts-and-all kind, the only thing I have to show for myself… is my Yahoo! email account.” So this thin book about diary writing that doesn’t actually excerpt any of the diary has arrived at just the right time. In Ongoingness, Sarah Manguso explores fragments, examining her life through the lens of a diary kept over 25 years. It’s an essential examination on what it means to exist in time, a sparse book about embracing the failures of memory. $15 at Amazon.com

Letter To A Future Lover by Ander MonsonIf diary writing is a dying or at least changing form of written life, then what is there to say about marginalia? A kind of extra-textual companion in subject matter to Ongoingness, though not in tone, Ander Monson’s Letter To A Future Loveralso examines time and memory, but specifically in how people establish themselves in the world though the particular artifact that is the book. Monson is engaging and smart, like an overly friendly librarian who’s accosted you among the stacks, but one so engaging in his ruminations on ephemera and eternity that you don’t mind at all. $17 at Amazon.com

Delicious Foods by James HannahamDelicious Foods begins with Eddie showing up at his estranged aunt’s doorstep missing both of his hands and it only goes on like that from there. It’s a painful tale of modern slavery and the many forms it takes. Eddie’s life and lives of his family are made of the traumas they endure, large and small. Life’s unfulfilled promises are on abundant display here, but the book also makes a point to try and show what compassion can look like in a world of unhealable wounds. Racial inequity and the pain that sprouts from it is a large part of this wound, and Hannaham explores its darkest truths with a narrative that’s honest and raw. $19.50 at Amazon.com

Pelican by Emily O’NeillFor a debut collection of poetry, Pelican is not f*cking around. It’s a long book and an ambitious one. But right away, Emily O’Neill establishes the kind of coherence of voice and ability that’s rare for any book of poetry. Her poetry is accessible and complex, replete with imagery that’s truly, strikingly unique. She lifts up the essential but often cliched — sex, love, coffee — and rips it apart until it becomes something new. The poems have their own lyrical velocity, a desire to bring you to a destination at their own speed. Poetry is almost never thought of, popularly, as bold, but if there was ever a collection to change someone’s mind, this is it. $16 at yesyesbooks.com